Pujols and his mark on history...

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JL21
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Re: Pujols and his mark on history...

Post by JL21 »

jim wrote:And in case nobody got the gravity of this conversation, yes we really are having a serious discussion comparing Pujols to Musial. That right there tells you a little bit about AP and his mark on history.
It also tells you a little bit about Musial (and how underrated he is, even amongst Cardinal fans).

I'm guilty of it.

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Re: Pujols and his mark on history...

Post by TheoSqua »

If my super rough lazy estimate is right, Musial and Pujols both had OPS+ of 170 over their first 8 seasons.

edit: another thing of note. Musial compiled all of this while also losing his age 24 season. I wonder how much closer to 500 HR / 2,000 RBI he would have gotten if he had played that season.

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Re: Pujols and his mark on history...

Post by JL21 »

Ah, but why estimate when you can find out exactly what it was?

Musial was at 172 (though that's really first 7 seasons, since the 8th season was 1941 when he only had a handful of at-bats).

With 8 full seasons, it's 171.

For Pujols, it's 170.

Looks like you were pretty much spot-on, Theo.

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Re: Pujols and his mark on history...

Post by AWvsCBsteeeerike3 »

Socnorb11 wrote: I'm not trying to take anything away from Musial. But this is an era where players have to face the best pitchers in the world that world-wide scouts can find, not just the best white Americans that are fortunate enough to play.
There were only what 16 teams throughout mlb when Stan the Man was playing as well. And, I believe they were still using 4 man rotations. And, they were pitching off elevated mounds. So, you had the 64 best pitchers in America to face day in and day out. I wonder how that talent would compare to the (30*5 =) 150 best pitchers worldwide.

I honestly don't know. But, I think it's safe to say the talent pool has been watered down somewhat by the expansion of the leagues. Hence Marquis getting 3 year 21 million dollar deals and Silva getting the deal he got. And, Dempster and Lohse getting the deals they got. And, so on and so forth.

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Re: Pujols and his mark on history...

Post by haltz »

AWvsCBsteeeerike3 wrote:I honestly don't know. But, I think it's safe to say the talent pool has been watered down somewhat by the expansion of the leagues. Hence Marquis getting 3 year 21 million dollar deals and Silva getting the deal he got. And, Dempster and Lohse getting the deals they got. And, so on and so forth.
Guys also hurt their arm and never pitched again, there were fewer specialists, etc. If it was strictly the US, it would make sense with the population doubling in size that it could be similar (though I don't think it exactly works that way), but it's much more than that. The last team, the Boston Red Sox, integrated when Musial was 38 years old! In 2007 you'd see David Ortiz, Manny, Dice-K, Okajima, Coco Crisp etc etc.

I think what you mention definitely softens the blow in talent disparity, but it doesn't make up for it. However, having said all that, I'm not sure just how this affects guys on the far far right of the bell curve. TTM mentioned Dan Rosenheck, and I know he tackles a lot of this stuff, but I just have never really looked at it that closely.

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Re: Pujols and his mark on history...

Post by Socnorb11 »

AWvsCBsteeeerike3 wrote:
Socnorb11 wrote: I'm not trying to take anything away from Musial. But this is an era where players have to face the best pitchers in the world that world-wide scouts can find, not just the best white Americans that are fortunate enough to play.
There were only what 16 teams throughout mlb when Stan the Man was playing as well. And, I believe they were still using 4 man rotations. And, they were pitching off elevated mounds. So, you had the 64 best pitchers in America to face day in and day out. I wonder how that talent would compare to the (30*5 =) 150 best pitchers worldwide.

I honestly don't know. But, I think it's safe to say the talent pool has been watered down somewhat by the expansion of the leagues. Hence Marquis getting 3 year 21 million dollar deals and Silva getting the deal he got. And, Dempster and Lohse getting the deals they got. And, so on and so forth.
You had 4 guys, all pitching on "short rest". And you didn't have fresh arms coming in in the 7th 8th & 9th innings.

Expansion doesn't come close to making up for the fact that we now have scouts scouring not only the entire U.S., but the entire world, overturning every rock to find the best arms.

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Re: Pujols and his mark on history...

Post by TheoSqua »

JL21 wrote:Ah, but why estimate when you can find out exactly what it was?

Musial was at 172 (though that's really first 7 seasons, since the 8th season was 1941 when he only had a handful of at-bats).

With 8 full seasons, it's 171.

For Pujols, it's 170.

Looks like you were pretty much spot-on, Theo.

Yeah I ignored the first real season for Musial. If you remove the 50 ABs of 179 OPS from his first season and add the 550 ABs of 163 OPS and it puts Musial about right at 170.

Btw, Frank Thomas had a 182 OPS+ over his first 8 seasons.

Double Btw, thanks for showing me that link. BR is an awesome tool.

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